Fifty years ago on Labor Day in Austin, a 21-year-old radio reporter walked alongside Cesar Chavez as the activist marched with farmworkers and labor leaders to the Texas capitol building to highlight the plight of agricultural workers in the Rio Grande Valley. Phil Oakley interviewed Chavez and others during the march, also taking photographs that have never been published. Here's his account of some of the events of that day in words, photos and audio clips:

On Labor Day 1966, there was confusion and uncertainty in our newsroom.

No one knew what might to happen in Austin when marchers from the Rio Grande Valley seeking a minimum wage for farmworkers arrived. Gov. John Connally had told the marchers they would not be welcome and no one would be there to greet them at the Capitol. It was viewed as just a Texas political story. There was no hint that history was being made.

The waiting finally ended with the faint sounds of a distant bass drum, followed by voices singing irregularly in Spanish. Eventually, a small group of marchers came into focus around the middle of the Congress Avenue bridge.

In a few more minutes, Cesar Chavez led the protesters off the crossing and toward the Capitol, marking his emergence from the fields and vineyards of California and onto the national stage.

Microphone in hand, I had joined him about the time he crossed East 1st Street. Neither of us could possibly have imagined one day that crossroad would be renamed East Cesar Chavez Street.

There was no mistaking that I was approaching a remarkable man. He humbly nodded his assent as I approached with the obvious intention of interviewing him while he marched. His words were simple, but his vision, courage and patient determination were obvious.

The core group of 20 or so devoted reformers surrounding him wore red bandanas to signify they had marched the entire 321 miles from Rio Grande City to Austin. When I asked Chavez if his red pañuelo indicated he had walked the total distance, he said it did not.

"Most of the people wearing the red bandanas marched all the way from the Valley. I guess it was given to me because I'm one of the guests," he said.

I recently asked another of the prominent marchers why he was drawn from Houston almost every weekend that July and August to walk in support of the Valley Marchers and what impressed him about the California organizer. Curtis Graves, in September 1966, was a state representative-elect from Houston.

"He was quiet. He didn't engage me in conversation until our third meal. He wasn't gregarious at all," said Graves, who's a retired NASA official and photographic artist. "I just wanted to be with him because I thought he was making a huge sacrifice for the nation."

The crowd along the lower part of Congress Avenue was thin. Most people who watched appeared curious as to who these people were out in the middle of Austin's main street. The Valley Marchers had not arrived to be cheered by throngs of believers.

Chavez explained why he had come.

"We are here to lend whatever support we can and to be with them and share in their joys after marching into Austin after two months of marching the road. I am happy to be here and we want to lend whatever assistance we can to them," he said.

We talked as they marched and I recorded and photographed history in the making.

Tracking the march

Making contact with the march had been a daunting task. Contacts in the Austin Police Department had been no help. State government appeared non-existent that morning. The Capitol building was locked down tight, something unprecedented in my experience.

At the offices of the Texas AFL-CIO, a man there said that the marchers weren’t in contact with him. Waiting on the north end of the bridge was the best suggestion he had to offer.

The demonstrators had faced significant harassment, frequently from law enforcement officers, scattered arrests on ridiculous charges, intimidation and lots of insults and heckling as they moved toward Austin from the Rio Grande Valley. But there had been no serious violence. When he confronted the marchers in New Braunfels the previous Wednesday, Connally had raised the possibility that the protesters could face “trouble” in Austin, telling them they should call off their demonstration at the capitol. His remarks had led to speculation that violence was a possibility on Labor Day.

Eugene Nelson, who had worked closely with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers Association movement in California, had been sent to Texas to expand the UFW’s reach into that state. After a successful negotiation in Houston, Nelson was persuaded to remain in Texas to organize agricultural workers in the Rio Grande Valley into a union.

With the capitol building in sight, I asked Nelson whether he expected violence against his group.

“There’s no telling what might happen. I hope there isn’t violence,” he responded.

The marchers had brought a mascot with them all the way from the Valley, a donkey. Painted on the donkey was the Spanish word Huelga, English for strike. Huelga quickly became the battle cry for the Valley Marchers. Also painted on the donkey's hide was “$1.25.” The figure represented the protestors’ demand for a $1.25 minimum wage for Texas farmworkers. Those who labored in the fields of South Texas in 1966 typically were paid 20 to 30 cents an hour.

Nelson explained that he had bought the donkey.

“I have a bill of sale right here in my wallet,” he added.

“He symbolizes the steady, plodding determination of the Mexican-American farm workers,” he said, calling called out to one of the Catholic priests who had been part of the long march, Antonio Gonzalez of Houston.

“Father Gonzalez, tell him your interpretation of why this donkey is in the march,” Nelson urged.

“The reason why this donkey’s in the march is because the Valley growers were driving by and yelling at us: ‘animals!’ And we have this animal here in order to explain to the Valley growers the difference between an animal and a human being,” Gonzalez said.

Walking most of the 491-mile route from the Rio Grande Valley to Austin was a donkey who quickly became the mascot of the marchers. March organizer Eugene Nelson said he purchased the donkey to illustrate the determination of the striking farm workers. But march leader Father Anthony Gonzalez had a more pointed message. He said the donkey was symbolic "because the Valley growers were driving by and yelling at us: animals ! And we have this animal here in order to explain to the Valley growers the difference between an animal and a human being.

(Phil Oakley/Special Contributor)

Curtis Graves of Houston, a civil rights activist in his city, won election to the Texas House of Representatives at the same time Barbara Jordan was elected to the Texas Senate from the same section of the city. In 1967, he would be the first black to take the oath of office as a member of the Texas House since Reconstruction. During July and August 1966, Representative-elect Graves would drive to South Texas almost every weekend to participate in the march, returning to Houston on Sunday nights. He was a strong supporter of the $1.25 per hour minimum wage for farm workers and said of Cesar Chavez: I just wanted to be with him because I thought he was making a huge sacrifice for the nation.

(Phil Oakley, Special Contributor)

Hank Brown, the President of the Texas AFL-CIO, was a stalwart in the march. On Labor Day, Brown was prominent in the group of core marchers around Cesar Chavez. The AFL-CIO president spoke passionately in support of the farm workers and their union at the Capitol rally and introduced the other featured speakers.

(Phil Oakley/Special Contributor)

U.S. Senator Ralph W. Yarborough was the undisputed leader of the liberal faction of the Texas Democratic Party on Labor Day 1966. He supported the Valley marchers, their union, strike and their push for a $1.25 minimum wage for agricultural workers in Texas. He showed the depth of his conviction to the farm workers cause by marching at their head the last six-and-a-half blocks up Congress Avenue to the Texas State Capitol.

(Phil Oakley/Special Contributor)

Rev. James Novarro of Houston was one of the major figures in the Valley march. The pastor of Kashmere Baptist Temple in Houston was a co-leader of the march is shown here in front of the massive crowd at the State capitol.

(Special Contributor)

(Phil Oakley, Special Contributor)

San Antonio Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez of San Antonio was the highest ranking Mexican-American holding elective office in Texas in 1966. He was a strong advocate in the cause of Latino rights and an adamant supporter of the marchers from the Rio Grande Valley. He was firmly attached to the liberal faction within the Texas Democratic Party. But at the same time, he was able to maintain his close alliance with President Lyndon B. Johnson. On Labor Day in 1966, he was a hero for almost everyone of Hispanic heritage in Texas. San Antonio s vast convention center still bears Gonzalez name today.

(Special contributor)

After more than two months, the striking farmworkers, two of them leading Eugene Nelson's donkey, complete their 491-mile march from Rio Grande City to the State Capitol of Texas.

(Phil Oakley, Special Contributor)

Connally's stand against the marchers' plan to rally in Austin had been publicly supported by Texas Attorney General Waggoner Carr and Ben Barnes, a protege of President Lyndon Johnson and the youthful speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. The three men had presented a united front against the farmworkers in New Braunfels, with the governor proclaiming that the Capitol would be locked and that no representative of state government would be there to welcome or meet with the marchers.

But Texas organized labor and the liberal wing of the state's Democratic Party had a surprise. Sen. Ralph Yarborough told me about it on the grounds of the capitol: he would be there to welcome the marchers.

"Fellow Texans, I welcome you to Austin, the capitol of Texas, my home city. I live here. I'm a Texan, an American, and I welcome you to this capitol of Texas.

"As the senior United States Senator from Texas, I am the highest elected public official in the state of Texas, elected wholly by the people of Texas. And as the representative of the highest office in this state, I welcome you to Austin," Yarborough said.

In a dramatic but carefully choreographed move, Yarborough had joined the march at the intersection of Congress Avenue and 6th Street, six-and-a-half blocks south of the Capitol steps.

Parallel march

Two blocks later, the marchers were united with a second group organized by Dr. Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Those 19 protesters, most of them black, had staged a parallel march to the capitol from Huntsville.

"We're trying to also impress upon the people that there are well over a hundred-thousand Negroes in this state that are in poverty, making below $2,000 a year," explained the group's leader Booker T. Bonner, described as a field representative for the SCLC.

The New York Times also reported that Rev. Andrew Young, a top lieutenant to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., had traveled to Austin to meet with Chavez.

Residents of Austin had not turned out in large or enthusiastic numbers along Congress Avenue for the marchers, but the crowd gathered at the capital was estimated at 8,000. Some estimates said there were many more.

There were labor officials with signs, many from industrial states of the Great Lakes and all of the population centers of Texas. Hank Brown, the President of the Texas AFL-CIO, spoke passionately in support of the farmworkers and their union at the rally.

Almost every observer who wrote of that march and the thousands who gathered in Austin to stand with them said it marked a turning point for Latinos in the Texas political arena.

The strikers in the Valley and their representatives who had marched two months to Austin, combined with the charisma of Chavez, changed the landscape. Chavez's influence was no longer confined to California. He was a leader of workers in the United States who traced their roots to Mexico and Central America.

In 2009, Texas honored Chavez by making his birthday, March 31, an optional holiday. In 2010, the Dallas designated a segment of South Central Expressway between Pacific Avenue and Grand Avenue as Cesar Chavez Street. And Austin honored Cesar Chavez shortly after his death in 1993 by changing the name of East 1st Street to Cesar Chavez Street.

Phil Oakley retired from The Dallas Morning News in 2008 and from ABC News in 2001 after a journalism career of 45 years. He now lives in San Diego and has published three novels of historical fiction.